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mercoledì 21 dicembre 2016

Nailed To Obscurity Interview

Nailed To Obscurity come from the cold Northern German stem of pure metal.

This five-pieces is at the third full length album, after the successfull Abyss and Opaque. Let's find out what the new relase, titled King Delusion, out on February under Apostasy Records has to reveal us through the words of Raimund (vocals) and Ole (guitar):

Let's start with a short introduction of each one of you. How would you describe your band to those who still don't know it?

Raimund: We are a melodic death metal band with doomy elements and a lot of melancholic atmosphere. The band was formed in 2005 and found its current form in 2012 after I joined the band as the new vocalist. We are located in Northern Germany and put out 2 albums so far: “Abyss…” and “Opaque”. In support of “Opaque”, we played numerous shows, worth mentioning that we played as a main-support for Paradise Lost or Arch Enemy or on bigger festivals like Wacken or Summer Breeze. And currently, we are preparing the release of our forthcoming album “King Delusion” :)

LFdM: Nailed To Obscurity is such an evocative name. It gives a deep sense of solitude, of darkness, of rage and sadness at the same time. Why did you chose this monicker? Was it your first choice? Does it hide some mysterious meaning?

Ole: It definitely was our first choice, but the story behind it is kind of funny. When Volker and I started the band, we were planning to do brutal death metal. We were really into fast and heavy stuff with a lot of blast beats, which is pretty much the opposite nowadays. So, we really liked that Hate Eternal track “Nailed To Obscurity” and we instantly liked that name as a band name. Right from the beginning, when we started playing together, we realized we were way too bad to play such technical music so we started to focus on slow and melodic stuff which we got more into around that time anyway. We also thought about changing the name in the beginning, but we always came to the conclusion that the name actually fits pretty well and that’s why we kept it until today and we are still happy with it.

LFdM: Who is the King who feels delusion? How would you describe your upcoming third album, to be released on February, under Apostasy Records?

Raimund: I wouldn’t say it’s actually a king that feels delusion but a king that seeds delusion. The title track refers to the feeling of someone who is losing him/herself or that simply blacks out in a way.

When you are full of frustration, anger or fear, you sometimes tend to do things that you normally wouldn’t even think of. If you reflect these situations these things seem as they were executed by a different person, a person under the influence of “someone”. “King Delusion” is a symbol for this “someone”. A king that acts like kings did back in ancient times, mercilessly reigning supreme and forcing their people to act as they wish.

The album in total deals with these kind of feelings, that you have to go through when you lose yourself, a person you love or anything that matters a lot to you. All these different states of dealing with your inner struggles and the feelings of loss. But it’s not just depressing. There are moments of salvation and relief. You can feel it through the music and hear it in the lyrics.

LFdM: Which are the main differences or similarities between this new album and your previous works, the debut Abyss and the following Opaque?

Ole: It is definitely different to the previous album, like Opaque was different to Abyss… It’s important to us to try new things, to see and hear a development instead of repeating ourselves over and over again. On the other hand, we don’t want to change completely, just try to improve what we think can be improved. So, I would say there is nothing missing that we did on the other records, but we did some things better this time and also added some new aspects, like a blast beat for example, feedbacks that we haven’t recorded on the last album, more clean vocals, harmony vocals, different styles of growling/harsh vocals that we haven’t used before. We also wrote a 12 minutes song which we haven’t written ever before. You know, things like that. >From a listener’s perspective I would say the biggest difference to the other albums is, that it is much darker and even more melancholic.

LFdM: Is there a song, or more than one, of the new album you feel for some reasons closer to? If so, would you like to tell us why?

Ole: To be honest, I really don’t have a favourite song. I like them all the same because there are highlights in every single song for me that I’m always waiting for, when I’m listening to the album.

Raimund: I totally agree with Ole. There sometimes is a song that I feel a little closer to but even one day later it can be a completely different one. The lyrics are very personal so I would say that my mood on each day would also affect my choice. But in the end all songs have the same importance to me and they turn out very well as a unit.

LFdM: I watched the video for King Delusion and also the one you shot for your previous album, Opaque, and I couldn't but notice that both are very simple and both have the band playing as one and only subject. Was it a specific choice? Is this a way to let the music do the talking, instead of distracting people with futile special effects?

Raimund: You mentioned a very interesting aspect of both videos. The most important thing about a music video is that it has to capture the mood of a song, either if it is a performance video or a video with actors that show their version of the story or the mood of a song. When we did the video for “Opaque”, we wanted to present the band in their new line up back then, like: “This is Nailed To Obscurity in 2013”.

This time, we discussed how we would present the first song and came to the conclusion that it would be cool to present the band in a live-performing situation to show that we are able to carry the atmosphere of our songs through our acting on stage. We also added a light-show to our live-appearance last year which is also in the video. So, the video shows a quite artful version of us in a live-situation without leaving out some creative ideas like the black-white-filter and so on.

But we also plan to do another video with a story-part. In the end, there will hopefully be two very different videos that both are like a visual enhancement to the music.

However, like you already said the most important thing is still, that the music has to be able to create pictures in the heads of the listeners and to stand on its own.

LFdM: Which songs of the new album do you think would work better live? What is your ideal setlist?

Raimund: It is very early because we haven’t rehearsed the whole album yet. I think “King Delusion” and “Desolate Ruin” will turn out great in a live-situation. I am also looking forward to play “Protean” live or such a long track like “Uncage My Sanity”. But the live-factor was always in our mind while we wrote the album so we would love to play all of them :)

Ole: At our release shows we will probably play the album in it’s entirety plus second set with songs from the other albums. That’s actually what I’m looking forward to the most. We’ve never played two sets before and also it will be great to play all the new songs live.

LFdM: How does the songwriting process work in your band?

Ole: Volker and I always start writing the songs together. So, we actually sit down together and work on ideas that we already had in mind, jam around, etc. Once we’ve finished a very rough song structure, we take it into the rehearsal room and from that point we work on the songs altogether until everyone is happy. This time we wrote all songs parallely at the same time instead of finishing one song first and then start writing on the next one.

LFdM: Where do you find inspiration for the lyrics of your songs?

Raimund: I am a very moody person that is very thoughtful. Reflecting myself and my surroundings are a very important part of my daily routine. I take inspiration of certain thoughts about emotions that I have felt or a close person might have felt. There are also conversations that inspired me or simply a word that I stumbled upon.

I then try to add pictures to that to give other people the chance to find their own meaning between the lines. The lyrics are very personal but they are also open to any kind of interpretation. So the listeners have to seek for their own key to the lyrics.

LFdM: How would you describe your sound, which, as written on your official website, combines heavy riffs with mellow parts, creating something unique, that cannot be simply defined as Death Metal?

Raimund: We have a very clear vision of our sound and the description melodic death metal might lead into a wrong direction. On the one hand, we definitely have our roots in that kind of music but on the other hand this wouldn’t necessarily incorporate the doomy elements and the melancholic atmosphere which is nearly gothic-esque in a way. So, we aren’t thinking about certain labels too much and try to let the music flow. At the end of the day, the music has to fit with what we think is the essence of Nailed To Obscurity. The music is quite open for new ingredients but has to stay true to its core which is rooted in the melodic doom death metal style.

LFdM: What are your main sources of inspiration, musically speaking? Who were your music heroes when you were kids?

Ole: It’s always the mood you are in, something you read about, something you experienced yourself, etc. It can really can be anything. Especially music and also some movies can inspire me quite often.

There are so many bands that we were listening to. Volker and I didn’t know anyone else who was into metal for quite a long time. We are from the countryside and it’s really not easy to find metalheads there, if you don’t know where to look for them. We started quite early and were the biggest Metallica and Sepultura fans when we were only 10 years old :) Especially until we were like 15-16 years old, we sat together every day just to try to find and discover new music and all of them had an influence on us. If I had to pick one particular band, I would name Sepultura. Simply because that’s definitely the band that made us think that we would have to start a band. Volker and I were 11 when we had the idea to learn playing instruments just to start a band some years later. That was always the plan and the reason was that we wanted to be as cool as Andreas Kisser :)

LFdM: Is there a band or a musician you would love to work with, both live or in the studio?

Raimund: There are a lot of bands we like to play shows with. But if you are talking about collaborations, this is a way more complex question. Because the most important thing has to be that the musician has to add something the music does not have without him/her. This could be a unique guitar solo or the voice of a vocalist that we like a lot. But I wouldn’t say that there is a particular musician that we have in mind.

To be honest, we already satisfied a wish with Victor “Santura” Bullok producing our new record. He was our very first choice for the production of “King Delusion” and we are still very happy with the result.

LFdM: Is there a band you've been often compared to, but you'd prefer not to?

Ole: Not really. I mean there are some comparisons in some reviews that we didn’t really get. But we always thought, well, if there are so many different comparisons, sometimes even with bands that we’ve never listened to or that really don’t sound like us, maybe that’s a good sign and simply shows that it’s not so easy to find another band that sounds exactly like we do.

LFdM: How do you spend your spare time when you are not recording or touring?

Raimund: Music is our hobby and besides that we all have regular jobs. So we try to spend as much time as possible on our hobby, on becoming better live-performers and on writing new music. But besides our jobs and our hobby, we are spending our spare time with friends, do sports or simply enjoy the calm before the next storm.

Ole: The funny thing is that we all are also the best friends (of course there are also others) and so we are also spending pretty much time together, even if we don’t do anything band related. Otherwise some of us like to do sports, etc. The usual stuff.

LFdM: Did you plan an extensive world tour?

Ole: Well, a world tour would be a bit much at this point, but we are definitely planning to tour.

LFdM: Do you think you'll manage to get a date in Italy?

Ole: We hope so and it will definitely happen sooner or later. But so far we can’t promise anything as we simply don’t know ourselves at this point.

Thanks a lot guys for your time and kindness, it's been a pleasure for me! I hope to see you performing live here very soon